


Firsts

by LuvEwan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU For Jedi Apprentice, Alternate Universe, Drama, Gen, Gen Firsts, Gen Firsts Prompts, Shorts, Wholesomeness, Written for the QuiObi Writing Discord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuvEwan/pseuds/LuvEwan
Summary: A collection of firsts between Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, including: first kill for Obi-Wan, first platonic bed sharing, first time Obi-Wan sees Qui-Gon cry, first major injury for Obi-Wan, first time Obi-Wan realizes how much Qui-Gon cares about him, first shared tea, first time Obi-Wan doesn't come home.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 20
Kudos: 245





	Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in response to the Gen Firsts prompt list on the QuiObi Writing Discord. My heartfelt thanks to Firondoiel for creating and organizing the challenge and to outpastthemoat for being the best cheerleader. And my deepest gratitude to both of you for being such lovely friends. <3

1.

The first time Qui-Gon sleeps next to his Padawan, he is not sure the gesture is appreciated. Obi-Wan does not acknowledge Qui-Gon’s presence, an elbow against his back, here on the narrow cot of a nameless transport. He remains huddled against the wall, facing away from his Master. It is obvious to Qui-Gon that the boy is trying to regulate his breathing, but the rise and fall of his chest is too measured, too perfect.

He wants to say “you do not need to perform for me,” but does not, because he worries it will be perceived as an insult. And Obi-Wan wants so much to be unaffected by what has happened. After all their trials together, his apprentice still clutches to the ideal of a Stoic Jedi. Qui-Gon also wants to say “that sort of Jedi is a myth,” but does not, because he worries the long-carried notion is the only thing holding Obi-Wan in one piece, just now. 

Qui-Gon wants to hold the rigid body in his arms, like a parent might soothe their child. It is not an easy thing for him to admit, even to himself. A Jedi is not meant to be stoic, but nor should their souls be unguarded. Another person should not fill up their heart. He is wrong to feel Obi-Wan’s devastation like this, as a hot lance through his gut. 

_Their teachers, we are. Nothing more, nothing less_ , Yoda’s voice floats into his head.

Words from long ago, before Obi-Wan was born. When Qui-Gon had agreed to finish Feemor’s training he was a young Knight, uncertain he could shoulder the responsibility entrusted to him by a slain friend. Ah, but Feemor had proved an easy foray into mentorship. He was already twenty-two, self-assured, on the precipice of Knighthood. He had not _needed_. 

Obi-Wan is different. He needs, wants any lesson Qui-Gon can give. More than that, he inspires need in Qui-Gon. A need to comfort. A need to care and protect, which is why he has left his bed and crossed the dark room to settle next to his Padawan, though Obi-Wan gives no indication he wants the company. 

Yet the boy would never tell him to go away. He will suffer the imposition of his personal space for the rest of the night, rather than reject his teacher. This is one of the reasons Qui-Gon’s heart is too full. 

They lay together in the quasi-silence of the private room. Qui-Gon hears the ship’s staff walk past now and then, the timed hums and heaves of the air recycler. But the walls are thick enough to shut out other voices. 

The walls around Obi-Wan’s thoughts are thicker, misleadingly so, like ivy vines grown over a steel fortress. On the surface, the boy does not seem as shut off. Others might see his eyes, the color of a clouded sky, and think him softer than he is, being so young. 

Very, very young, Qui-Gon muses, resisting the urge to take the coiled braid between his fingers. When Qui-Gon was fifteen, he was all vines, no fortress, much to his own Master’s lasting dismay. He wonders why it is different for Obi-Wan, who cares deeply and smiles brightly, but can close doors before Qui-Gon knows to look for them. 

Perhaps all Masters and Padawans must exist with this chasm, unremarked upon, between them. 

Yet he denies the distance. He carefully places his hand on Obi-Wan’s arm, feels a slight jump of muscle beneath his touch. The boy smells of sweat. “You haven’t changed your tunics,” Qui-Gon observes in a whisper, and instantly regrets it. Surely he was smoother with Feemor, even Xanatos. Neither of those students could rattle him like Obi-Wan’s neutral silence does. 

“Should I change them?” Obi-Wan answers, after a few beats. He sounds tired and remains motionless, a thin sheet across his waist. 

Qui-Gon leaves his hand. “No...It’s only...you never sleep in dirty tunics.” He wonders if he could have conjured a more lame response, and then wonders if it would be rude to slink back to his bunk and not say another word. 

“I’m not sleeping.”

The lance strikes deeper. He is a teacher, nothing more. And to be this boy’s father would be more: more pain, more responsibility, more fear. Did old Yoda glimpse the frailty of Qui-Gon’s character back then, long before he knew it himself? _You cannot make this better for him._ Dooku had not found the occasion worth a solitary comment, except a bland suggestion to clear his mind. 

But it had taken months for Qui-Gon to stop dreaming of the first man he’d killed. He could still see his face, remember the smell, the agonized confusion staring out from wide eyes. For awhile, he considered leaving the Order, and never touching another weapon, for how could the Force, which binds every life, approve of taking a life, any life? 

“I know,” Qui-Gon murmurs. He gives in and touches the smooth, plaited hair. When they return to Coruscant, he will tie a new ornament into Obi-Wan’s braid: a delicate, black thread, signifying death. It is a ceremony without words. 

He does not ask if the boy wants to eat. This is what a father would do. 

“I know,” he says again, closer to Obi-Wan’s ear. The meaning is altogether different. He shifts on the bed, stretching one long leg over the side. 

He allows his eyes to close, though he does not drift. He listens. Rather than hear Yoda, or his own careful mental narrations, he eventually hears Obi-Wan turn over, and rest his head on Qui-Gon’s shoulder. 

The recycler vibrates against the wall, and Qui-Gon breathes in the cool air which moves overhead, suddenly, as if passing through an opened door. 

2.

The first time Obi-Wan sees his Master cry, it is by accident. He is awake when he shouldn’t be, though he has tried very hard to sleep through the pain. The odd dreams ultimately rouse him, because in these dreams his friends are in danger and Obi-Wan cannot find them. When he opens his eyes it feels as if he’s never done it before—lids heavy and slow to respond to his wakefulness. His surroundings are indistinct, watered down at the edges, and the last few days are no clearer. 

He clumsily follows the trail left by his own memory: sabotage, capture, darkness. Xantos, for so long a dark spot on his Master’s past, now a spreading red stain in the Force. Before Obi-Wan passed out, he saw the quick haze of blood. 

He doesn’t need Qui-Gon to tell him what happened, what was sacrificed for Obi-Wan’s life. 

It is evident in the curve of Qui-Gon’s spine. He is hunched over a chair with his head in his hands. 

His shoulders shake. 

Yoda tells the younglings in the creche that death is another part of life, Light escaping the confines of a room and spilling out upon everything. In death a person could illuminate the Universe. 

But this is a dark death. Obi-Wan sees no incandescence around Qui-Gon. Rather it seems the bright parts of the man have been leached out and replaced with a grey pain. He sits in the corner of the little hospital room on a chair that is too small for him, tunics charred and scorched, and weeps without a sound.

Obi-Wan’s stomach feels too tight. He wishes he could sink into the bed and disappear, just for now, just to allow Qui-Gon the privacy to mourn what was lost. The man must find Obi-Wan’s presence another blow. 

He is the reason Qui-Gon was forced to kill Xanatos, after all.

He got himself captured, _again_ , and Qui-Gon was presented with an impossibly painful choice. 

“ _Do not make me do this_.” There had been undisguised desperation in that voice, and Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s ever heard such bone-deep despair. 

He steals another glance at Qui-Gon from beneath his lashes. He keeps his body very still, hoping that he is forgotten in the smothering tide of grief.

Except when he looks over, Qui-Gon is already looking back at him. 

_Shavit._

Obi-Wan’s heart pounds. He can think of nothing better to do than to close his eyes and pretend to be sleeping again. Of course, it is a feeble ruse; he senses Qui-Gon’s eyes on him. 

A heavy sigh. The chair scrapes against the tile floor. A rush of cool wind, and Obi-Wan knows Qui-Gon is sitting at his bedside now. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse,” his Master tells him, in a softly surprised, perhaps _amused_ , tone. 

Yes, it would be best for Obi-Wan to burrow underneath the blankets and keep going, until he is far away from this excruciating embarrassment, nevermind the guilt. He knows not even sedatives can excuse a lack of shielding. The boy opens his eyes and struggles to sit upright, but achieves an awkward sag against the pillows instead. He folds his hands over his middle and swallows. “I apologize, Master.” His voice cracks—he realizes he has not spoken since…

Qui-Gon smiles, even as a tear slides from the corner of one eye. He pats Obi-Wan’s wrist. “I wonder how I came to have a student who is sorry for having _thoughts_.” 

Obi-Wan knows his Master is joking, but it is a strange time, and he takes the words harder than he should. “I could have better thoughts.” 

“So could I,” Qui-Gon admits. He wipes the heel of a hand across his eyes. 

Instinctively, Obi-Wan starts to ask if he wants to be alone. But then he realizes he can’t exactly _leave_. 

Qui-Gon’s shoulders quake again, but now they are moved by a gentle chuckle. “Should I have my injured young student drag his IV cart down the corridor, so that I can wallow in my despair? Firstly, Padawan, I doubt you’d make it very far.”

Obi-Wan flushes. He can’t put away the notion that he should not be here, seeing this vulnerability. He isn’t sure he’s ever seen an adult cry. Not up close. And certainly he’s never seen tears running freely down Qui-Gon Jinn’s face. His head aches. He is only just remembering how Xanatos slammed his head into a console, again and again, until his vision swam and blood streamed from his nose. 

“ _Stop! Stop! You’ll kill him!_ ” 

But Xanatos had not stopped. Those eyes, pale blue but seething, wild and unglued and bottomless pits of hate, seized on Obi-Wan as if he was the lowest creature in the galaxy. The Dark felt like ice in his veins, the Light and safety and _home_ all so far away. Obi-Wan thought he would vomit everywhere and die. He would never be strong enough. No matter how he fought, and then Qui-Gon…

He gulps back a threatening rush of emotion. When he looks down at his hands, they are shaking. He has tried for years now to be Qui-Gon’s partner, not equal but at least _dependable_ and _capable_. 

Obi-Wan is neither of those things. Compared to other Padawans, his apprenticeship seems rife with constant disaster. Maybe the Masters (including Qui-Gon) were right to be wary of him back when he was an initiate. He trusts in the Force but does the Force trust in him? Is he worthy of trust, when calamity and heartache follow him wherever he goes? Are they just the result of the choices he makes? 

He could have broken away from Xanatos. If he’d been more cunning, exploited the fallen Jedi’s instabilities, as Qui-Gon would have done…

The pain churns behind his temples. He only now realizes there is something wrapped around his head, and touching tentatively Obi-Wan feels a dry bandage. Funny, he remembers blood. 

Qui-Gon places two fingers against Obi-Wan’s temple. Immediately, the grinding tension eases. “Better?”

Obi-Wan finds it safer to nod than to speak, despite his injury. He is afraid his voice will waver. Qui-Gon has enough to deal with. And Obi-Wan has displayed enough weaknesses.

Qui-Gon inspects the bandage. “The bleeding has finally stopped, thank the Force.” He says, then sits back in the chair. He looks rumpled, without his hair combed, or his tunics correctly tucked. “You gave the healers some trouble for awhile.” Qui-Gon smiles. “And me too.”

Obi-Wan looks into the dark blue eyes; they are clear and strong, though the skin beneath them is unusually creased.“I think I give you too much trouble.” He drops his gaze and picks at the loose threads of the hospital blanket. 

“Well, you _are_ always fiddling with things that ought to be left alone.” Qui-Gon stills Obi-Wan’s hands by taking them in his own. “But I’d rather have a curious and thoughtful student. It makes the days more...interesting.”

Obi-Wan stares at the long fingers and scarred palms. Warm tears well in his eyes, but he feels powerless to stop them. “You should have a student that can take care of himself. Then maybe...maybe…” He inhales quickly, his breath hitches. 

“You are a very capable young man, Obi-Wan. If you could take care of yourself all the time, there would be no need for me, would there? And I enjoy taking care of you.”

Obi-Wan snorted. Another tear slid down his cheek. It felt huge—mortifying. “I’m sorry I saw—-I wish I could give you privacy. I know it’s...difficult…” 

“I’ve had plenty of privacy, Padawan. Too much. You were unconscious for several days.” Qui-Gon reveals quietly. His hands remain around Obi-Wan’s. “He slammed you into the panel again and again. I pleaded with him.

“And then I warned him.” Qui-Gon’s mouth sets in a tight line. “I _warned_ him. He wouldn’t back down. The Dark had overtaken him completely.”

Obi-Wan knows his Master’s words are true. “I was afraid,” he utters, with some shame. 

“So was I.”

Obi-Wan looks at Qui-Gon, blinks. 

Qui-Gon smiles sadly and touches his thumb to Obi-Wan’s chin. “I was afraid he would kill you, before I could stop him.”

It is difficult, but Obi-Wan meets his Master’s eyes, holds them steadily as he says, “I’m sorry you had to kill him.”

Qui-Gon takes Obi-Wan’s face in his hands. “I want you to listen to me, Padawan.”

Obi-Wan’s throat dries. He swallows and nods. 

“As a Jedi, I cannot believe that anyone is beyond saving. Perhaps some good remained in Xanatos. But I was not concerned about that. He made his choices, and in the end, I could not be the one to save him. All that mattered to me was saving you, Obi-Wan. You were, you _are_ , my priority.”

Obi-Wan ducks his head to rub away the tears. It is too much. This new burn in his chest hurts worse than the guilt or grief. 

“Don’t be embarrassed by your emotion. I have sat here and wept for the apprentice I lost, though I lost him long before he died. I’ve sat here and wept for what he did to you. Seeing such heartless violence committed against you..” Qui-Gon glances at the bandage, and for a moment Obi-Wan can see what his Master sees, the blackened blood and bruises and swelling. 

He has not understood—- “Was I going to die?” 

Qui-Gon exhales. “Your condition was...uncertain. You would not wake. The doctors prepared me. I have been here with you since then.”

Obi-Wan tries to imagine Qui-Gon sitting in the tiny plastic chair for days. He wonders if his Master ate, or slept, or did he just sit, thinking of the apprentice he killed, the other apprentice he still might lose. Obi-Wan has worried about his Master, in dark moments wondered what it would be like to endure his death, but never considered that Qui-Gon might worry about him in that same way. 

He looks at Qui-Gon, and there is new moisture gleaming in his eyes. “I’m so very glad you’re alright, Padawan.” 

Obi-Wan is not used to being the one to comfort. What does Qui-Gon want from him? He has always been an aloof man. “I’m alright, Master.” He confirms. 

He is not prepared for the arms that encircle him, or the hand that curves around his head, covering it completely. Obi-Wan leans into Qui-Gon.

“Thank the Force, young one.” Qui-Gon whispers in his ear. “Thank the Force.” 

3\. 

The first time Obi-Wan and his Master fight, it is on Melida/Daan. 

They can do nothing by halves. 

The anger is a sore lump in Obi-Wan’s stomach. He carries it around everywhere. And then, when Qui-Gon retrieves him, the anger becomes guilt and a rabid, anxious fear. His probation is the most difficult time of his life, though he knows he deserves it all. 

_He will never forgive me_ , Obi-Wan realizes one day. 

But Qui-Gon does. 

4.

The first time Qui-Gon Jinn shares tea with Obi-Wan Kenobi, the cups are empty. Still, the boy has taken great care in preparing and pouring, and it would be rude not to have a taste. 

The Jedi Master brings the plastic cup to his lips, then pauses. “And what flavor would this be?”

“Your favorite.” The answer is instant, with all the assuredness that comes with being four years old. Obi-Wan watches him intently. 

“Ah,” Qui-Gon’s mouth twitches with a budding smile. It is always difficult to give small children the serious reactions they seem to crave—their eyes are impossibly big. Tahl teases him about his weakness. She’s the one who sent him to the crèche, in fact. 

_“Keep it simple today, my friend. That apprentice of yours….he makes things so complicated.”_

An understatement. He isn’t sure where Xanatos has gone, isn’t sure—

“And how do you know which tea is my favorite, little one?” He wonders softly, redirecting his own thoughts to the present moment. 

Obi-Wan looks down at the cup cradled in his hands, as though he is studying the dark, swirling depths of actual tea. His auburn hair looks riotous; whatever attempts made to tame it by his crèche masters have been only briefly successful. “Cuz it’s your favorite one.” He decides, and meets Qui-Gon’s gaze. “Drink it please. One for you and one for me.”

“Of course. Thank you.” Qui-Gon makes an exaggerated motion with the cup, and mimics a gulping sound. “Very good, indeed.”

The boy smiles in his eyes first. He sips loudly. “Mine’s cimmamim.”

Qui-Gon cannot quite swallow his laughter. “Oh, cinnamon is delicious.”

“Yours isn’t good.” Obi-Wan screws up his face and shivers. “Don’t like it.”

Qui-Gon shifts on the child-sized stool. His legs are going a bit numb, but he is intrigued. “What does my tea taste like?”

Obi-Wan takes another air-slurp and pauses, thinking. “Grass.” He shivers. 

Qui-Gon studies the earnest little face. His heart beats faster—he remembers the earthy notes of his favorite blend, which he drinks nearly every morning while at the Temple. Qui-Gon doubts even Xanatos would be able to identify the taste. 

It has been some time since they’ve sat together for tea. Obi-Wan would not have been born yet, he supposes. 

The days move so quickly; none draw him closer to his Padawan. 

_Is this why you sent me here, my Tahl? To remind me of the potential yet to come?_

Or perhaps, he thinks, just to remind him of innocence. 

5.

The first time Obi-Wan doesn’t come home, they are not home, but on a mission. Qui-Gon has issued him a simple errand—to retrieve a data chip. Hours pass. Qui-Gon comms him. Comms him again, leaving a message that probably sounds more stern than he intends. 

He paces. He does not reach for him in the Force. Obi-Wan is a senior Padawan, and this is a low-risk assignment. 

Qui-Gon decides to make tea. 

When Obi-Wan returns early the next day and explains the broken down speeder and malfunctioning commlink, he pauses to mention the kettle is full of cold tea.


End file.
